Hero in the Mirror
by Kitty O
Summary: Tag to episode "Midnight." After the incident on Midnight, Jethro finds it hard to respect his parents or himself. Mostly introspective oneshot.


**A/N: Hey! I'm Kitty O, and I don't usually write for **_**Doctor Who**_**. I can usually be found over in the **_**Merlin**_** fandom, actually, and I'm not ashamed to admit I watched this episode just to see Colin Morgan act as an emo teenager. So this is the first and probably the last **_**Doctor Who**_** story you will ever see me write. Just fair warning. But don't let that stop you from reading this little oneshot. **

**I usually write 3****rd**** person, but this is in first… In case you care. Jethro POV. Jethro the emo teen. *giggles***

**Later edit: I went back and checked, and noticed I made a mistake. Jethro didn't JUST cry... Near the end, he started to help his father throw the Doctor out. While he was crying. I think I fixed all my mistakes now though.**

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><p><span>Hero in the Mirror<span>

By Kitty O

I don't think someone can go through a really traumatic experience – one of the worst in a short life – and come out totally unchanged.

For me, one of the changes was that I couldn't look at myself in a mirror anymore.

Before that ride – before the Voice – before Midnight, I used to like looking in the mirror. I wouldn't have admitted it to my parents or my friends, but I liked the way my dark hair set off my light, thin face. I liked the way the black bands looked on my wrists; I liked the clothes; I liked the fingernails. I thought I looked good.

I couldn't see all that when I looked in the glass anymore. I couldn't see the (in my opinion) okay-looking face. All I could see when I looked at that reflection now was… Shallow. Scared. Not much.

_I'm not much. _And I'd thought I was so deep.

I was so _not much_ that when I had faced the most trying moment of my life, when I'd had to make a decision to stand up or lie down, what had I done? Cried.

Weak. I'd even started to assist my father. I hadn't helped at all.

_Nobody helped, _I tried to defend myself. _Nobody except the hostess, and at first even she… _

I shook my head at the reflection of me then.

_Oh, that's better. I was a coward in a group of cowards. _

_Or worse than cowards. _

I remembered my parents on Midnight. My father, my own father, had tried to throw a man to his death while my mother urged him on. My dad had always been aggressive, and I knew it, but he'd tried to _murder_ someone because he had been _scared_. And my mother told him to.

How was I supposed to respect them after that?

I couldn't. And not just because I was a disrespectful teenager. I couldn't respect them because whenever I looked at them, all I saw was my father lugging the body of a terrified-looking man towards the outside, where the man would be disintegrated, while my mother stood back and watched.

While I cried, not wanting all of that to happen but not knowing how to stop it. And not wanting to displease my parents.

Maybe that made me a little better than them, but somehow it didn't comfort me much. I couldn't seem to drag up any respect for myself either after that.

To top it off, the man we'd all been about to kill hadn't even been the right person.

The Doctor.

I remembered him as vividly as I recalled everything else from that day. A friendly-looking man with crisp clothes and big brown eyes.

He had been the only one of us with the brains to know what the right thing to do was and the courage to stand up for it. He hadn't wanted to kill anyone, like me, and he'd said so, like me. Except after he'd said so, he'd stuck by his decision and not backed down or been swayed by the crowd. Until the Voice rendered him helpless.

And to think I'd accused him of _enjoying_ that disaster. Not just of finding it interesting—I'd said that he liked it. _Me_; I'd said that. How could I have accused him of that, after I cheerfully stood before the possessed woman and made her repeat things like "666!"? And I'd found that amusing, even though two men had already died.

It was rather sickening to realize now that I'd been so unaffected by two deaths. Just because I'd never met the men before. I'd never seen death before. I didn't know that within the hour that would change.

And in the moment it did change, I was just crying. Uselessly, pathetically. And then I'd reached forward... Taken the Doctor's leg... I'd started to _help_. To help kill someone.

I couldn't get past that.

_I should have done something!_ Why hadn't I? Had I just not wanted to? I hadn't wanted to kill anyone myself, but I hadn't wanted the Voice to take over my body either. Doing nothing had been a very easy way to make sure neither happened.

_Better them than me. _

That's what I had thought, wasn't it? Deep in my mind, hadn't I been thinking it was better for them to die than me? Even after the hostess – the hostess and the lady carrying the Voice – had died, hadn't I still secretly been glad it wasn't me?

How could I be that kind of person? It was disgusting.

I didn't want to be like that.

I guess I didn't want to be _me_.

That's why I couldn't look in the mirror anymore.

When I couldn't take that train of thought another second, and the disgust building up just made me want to explode, I thought of something else.

I thought of the Doctor. I never saw him again after that, but whenever I thought of him, I felt the rush of respect I wished I could associate with my parents or myself.

He'd tried, at least. He'd done his best to do something good, to save lives. Sure, in the end it had been the hostess who acted the hero… But I didn't want to be the hero in the end. I wanted to be the hero from the start. Like the Doctor. I wanted to be like the Doctor.

I wondered if that were possible: for me to stop being a cowardly boy and be that kind of man. The good kind, like I imagined that Doctor fellow might be. I'd like to be a hero, or at least to try and be one. Then maybe one day I could look into the mirror and see a different Jethro. One who was more like the Doctor.

Or maybe, one day, if I tried hard and worked up slowly and changed myself, I could look unashamedly into a mirror and see me – black nails and all – but also see a man who could be a hero through and through. I could be a good man without having to be someone else.

Jethro the hero. I liked that. I would work for it, and if I could see myself without cringing, if I could like myself again, then it would be worth it.

Until then, I took my mirror from the wall and put it where I couldn't accidentally look into it.

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><p><strong>AN: Would they still have mirrors on walls that could be removed? Geez, futuristic settings are so much trouble! Oh, well, I hope you liked it. **


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